Throughout this paper, E will denote a finite-dimensional vector space over an ordered field . The real number field will be denoted by ℜ and its rational subfield by . Many of the basic notions in the theory of convexity (convex set, extreme point, hyperplane, etc.) can be defined in the general case just as they are when , but their behaviour may be different from that in the real case. By way of example, we consider the following theorem (due essentially to Minkowski), which is of fundamental importance both for geometric investigations and for the applications of convexity in analysis:

(1) Suppose . If K is a convex subset of E which is linearly closed and linearly bounded, then. K = con ex K; that is, K is the convex hull of its set of extreme points.